Italy and the European Union are headed for a throwdown. Italy's new government wants to help its citizens following years of grinding economic immiseration. And the EU is hellbent on stopping them, all in the name of neoliberal budget discipline.

It's an astonishing spectacle, one that exposes the bottomless stupidity and self-destructive high-handedness of EU leadership.

Italy was hit hard by the global economic collapse of 2008 and the ensuing...

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After the latest GDP data showed that Italy's economy didn't grow at all during the third quarter amid a spreading European slump that's likely inspiring panic in Brussels, the country's emboldened populist leaders are refusing to surrender in what has become a political game of chicken with the EU over a proposal that calls for an expansion of Italy's budget deficit to 2.4% to fund pension benefits, welfare programs and tax cuts.

A European court has ruled that people can be fined and prosecuted in criminal court for saying things about religious figures. Specifically, saying things about the Muslim prophet Mohammad is verboten, and state punishment is appropriate:

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled a woman convicted by an Austrian court of calling the Prophet Mohammed a paedophile did not have her freedom of speech rights infringed.